Bloxx’s eBook on Social Media in Education Helps Schools Set Social Media Policies


Boston, Mass., (February 28, 2013) – It doesn’t take a scholar to appreciate how new social media tools are changing education for both students and teachers. A new e-book, Social Media in Education: Enhancing Learning and Managing eSafety, from Bloxx, addresses the challenges schools face in harnessing social media information and collaborative learning tools, while protecting students from inappropriate content and dangerous malware.

“Giving students access to the wealth of content and learning applications on the Internet, while protecting them again harmful content and complying with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1988), is a major challenge for those in education,” says Eamonn Doyle, president of Bloxx Inc., a leader in Web content filtering and email security. “Our new e-book is a primer for school administrators and IT professionals to integrate social media into the curriculum, along with a step-by-step guide for creating flexible social media and Internet access policies for their schools or districts.”

The Social Media in Education: Enhancing Learning and Managing e-Safety e-book highlights research which shows how social media can enhance traditional education models, build collaboration, support home-school and distance learning, and open channels to real-time data and relevant content.

Major sections of the e-book address the cultural, communications and technology challenges in creating a workable social media policy. According to the book’s author, leading educational technologist and award-winning teacher Ollie Bray, “It’s important to communicate the reason for a consistent social media policy across any educational organization. A good policy begins with good and open communication.”

“Equally important are some of the technology challenges, particularly around content filtering and security,” continued Bray. “Many schools are so concerned about risks from social media that they try to implement blanket ‘lock and block” policies that shut down access, but too broadly limit important educational content.” The Bloxx e-book describes some of the new generation web filtering technology that analyzes and categorizes web page content, rather than just blocking sites based on broad key word or URL restrictions. “These new content-based filtering tools,” concludes Bray, “let administrators set and control reasonable access according to grade level, subject matter and different roles such as students, faculty and staff.”

A free copy of Social Media in Education: Enhancing Learning and Managing eSafety, is available for download at http://www.bloxx.com/c/socmedna/ or by emailing info@bloxx.com.

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About Bloxx
Headquartered in Boston, Bloxx Inc. offers Web and email filtering and security for medium and large organizations in both the business and public sectors. Bloxx has achieved unrivalled sales growth year-on-year to become a leading Web filtering provider with an estimated 5 million+ users worldwide. To find out more about Bloxx Web filtering, call 617-924-1500, email info@bloxx.com or visit www.bloxx.com to book an online demonstration.

Editorial contacts

In the U.K.
.Carolyn Bowick
Bloxx
cbowick@bloxx.com
+44 (0) 1506 42976

In the U.S.
Roger Bridgeman
Bridgeman Communications
Roger@bridgeman.com
617-742-7270

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